How to discharge a lipo battery?

Generally speaking, fully charged batteries have extremely active chemical properties and cannot be stored on a full charge for more than 3 days. If they are kept for more than a week, there will be a risk of the gas bilge. Some batteries may not bulge temporarily, but if the batteries keep full charge storage after several times, they may be directly scrapped. Hence, the lipo batteries generally cannot be stored at full charge. Ok, here comes the question: How to discharge a lipo battery?

In reality, not every RC modeler has a good understanding of the way to discharge the lipo rechargeable batteries, especially the radio control newcomers. For instance, a remote control hobbyist whose nickname is B450guy posted a resemble problem in RC groups forum:" Hi, I have some lipo batteries and I just charged them. There was not enough time in the day to fly them all and now I need to discharge them. How can I discharge them to storage voltage? I have no clue to discharge. Please help!" I think many newbies perhaps have the same confusion. Therefore, this article is available to give some practical advice and help most modelers have a deeper understanding of discharge the lipo battery.

Before the discharge - Yeah, safety is the most important!

When it comes to batteries, safety is crucial and shouldn't be ignored. No matter what we do, we're supposed to keep safety in mind. Therefore, when discharging lipo batteries, we ought to take some precaution and avoid taking a risk at the beginning. OK, three main kinds of discharge method would be introduced involving purchasing battery discharger, DIY the light bulk discharger, and using regenerative dischargers.

1. Buying battery discharger

You can take battery discharger into consideration. This is one of the most practical methods that can be easily held up. No need to do anything, there are completed components such as cell meter, lightbulb, and some relevant wires. You just need to check the state of the lipo battery by means of the cell meter(it can show the voltage and capacity) at first and plug your batteries into the RC cell meter. To take out your new lightbulbs and connect the cell meter respectively. When the lightbulbs light up, the lipo batteries is at the process of discharging. Nevertheless, the shortcoming of this way is the lightbulb will be increasingly hot, which would cause great damage and burn possibly if putting the lightbulbs on the flammable substances such as the paper.

pic credict: AOKoda

You can take battery discharger into consideration. This is one of the most practical methods that can be easily held up. No need to do anything, there are completed components such as cell meter, lightbulb, and some relevant wires. You just need to check the state of the lipo battery by means of the cell meter(it can show the voltage and capacity) at first and plug your batteries into the RC cell meter. To take out your new lightbulbs and connect the cell meter respectively. When the lightbulbs light up, the lipo batteries is at the process of discharging. Nevertheless, the shortcoming of this way is the lightbulb will be increasingly hot, which would cause great damage and burn possibly if putting the lightbulbs on the flammable substances such as the paper.

2. Building the light bulk discharger by yourself

OK, purchasing a battery discharger directly is a convenient and easily operated way to discharge a lipo battery. But if you're fond of DIY stuff and challenge, building a light bulk discharger might be a wonderful option for you. But how to do it now? To begin with, you should prepare the essential materials including XT60 connectors, red and black wire, heat shrink, and the lightbulb (Yeah, you can purchase all of these from Amazon and these will cost $30 totally). Then, you need to pick out the appropriate wire (7.6-15.2cm) based on what you gonna set up and connect the XT60 plug with the wire by soldering.

pic credit: HAWK-RC

Please notice that the red lead is fit for the positive point and the black one is suited to the negative. Moreover, to install the heat shrink at the end of the leads and finally to solder the lightbulb to wires. This way is not as complicated as you consider and just have a try. When finished, you'll be proud of yourself. Of course, this method also has its cons. It requires to monitor the pack voltage to avoid over discharging. Hence, you need to pay more attention to the voltage during discharge or you can employ a lipo voltage alarm to warn you.

3. Using a power resistor as a regenerative discharger

Except for the methods I have mentioned above, there is another solution that I have done many times to deal with the discharge. To start with, you need to prepare a discharged pack and a power resistor. It is to take advantage of the power resistor and then to connect a fully charged battery and a discharged pack by means of the wires. The electric current would flow from the fully charged pack to the discharged one. But the method demands the packs own the same cell count.

In a word, there are many solutions that are efficient to discharge a lipo battery. Therefore, just have a try and never let your lipo batteries store for over 2 or 3 days and discharge your pack for safe storage. Want to know more about how to store the lipo battery? This article may help you: https://www.ovonicshop.com/blogs/how-to/how-to-storage-lipo-batteries.